Author: Liaison Toolkit Administrator

The Library Teaching and Learning Committee (LTLC) held their annual PD Day on January 12, 2018. Jessie Richards, Curriculum Developer with the Office of the Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education, was the guest speaker and presented on Course Design and Curriculum Renewal. The half-day event also had a librarian panel, with Stephanie Perpick (Liaison Librarian, UTSC), Mindy Thuna (Head, Engineering & Computer Science Library), and Desmond Wong (Outreach Librarian, OISE Library), providing insights to their own curriculum renewal experience. Mariana Jardim, faculty liaison from CTSI, also presented on her curriculum mapping experience with UTSC Health Studies through a practicum course she took during her time at the iSchool.

Why are we talking about curriculum renewal?

The most recent U of T Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA) states, “faculty and staff will work together to revitalize the undergraduate curriculum in many disciplines through curriculum mapping processes that better define learning outcomes and pathways for students” (p.7).

Many departments will be undergoing a curriculum mapping process in the upcoming years. The PD Day presenters provided librarians with a starting point for understanding and engaging in this process with mapping information literacy and library instruction throughout a program.

The Liaison Update Forum on Oct. 4 featured short presentations by UTL’s functional specialists, who explained what they do and how their services can be useful to liaisons. Below is a list of speakers and any slides or resources they provided with their presentation.

Suggestions for Improving the Connection between Functional and Liaison Librarians

At table discussions after the presentations, a number of suggestions came forward on how to advance collaborations between functional specialists and liaison librarians:

invite liaisons who may not regularly teach, to co-teach or be present during information literacy workshops

create a directory of functional specialists in Confluence

functionals could do more with liaison clusters during the pilot – come in to talk more about opportunities

highlight some of the tools that liaisons could promote or use (e.g. Omeka, Islandora) as spotlight articles in In the Loop – a way of showcasing these tools to staff who may not be aware of them

create a visualization/flow chart of a digital project, from genesis to execution – to illustrate how projects come to be, and the path to execution and completion. This could serve as a model to faculty members who may want to make their own collections of content/images available online.

Add the work of functional specialists to the Library Resources for Faculty guide, to better highlight their work and increase awareness

2012 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR THE SOCIETY FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Centre Mont-Royal
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
June 19 – 22, 2012

The Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) invites proposals for presentations at its 32nd Annual International Conference – “Learning without boundaries? Apprentissage sans limites?”

The theme of this conference is learning without boundaries. Questions to explore include:
• Does learning have boundaries?
• What boundaries do we have or need?
• Are boundaries productive? Constructive? Liberating?
• Which boundaries need to be re-drawn, crossed, broken or maintained?

This Friday, December 2 (11:00 p.m. CST) is the application deadline for the ACRL Information Literacy Immersion ’12 Program (Teacher and Program tracks). Immersion ’12 will be held July 22-27, 2012, at Champlain College in Burlington, VT. Immersion ’12 Program provides four-and-a-half days of intensive information literacy training and education for academic librarians. Whether your institution is just beginning to think about implementing an information literacy component or whether you have a program well under way, Immersion ‘12 will provide you with the intellectual tools and practical techniques to help your institution build or enhance its instruction program.

“I can honestly say I have never experienced a more holistic learning experience! WOW!” — Immersion ’11 participant

“Immersion has been an energizing experience – so full of new ideas, new perspectives, new minds and colleagues.” — Immersion ’11 participant

Acceptance to Immersion ’12 is competitive to ensure an environment that fosters group interaction and active participation. Complete program and track details, along with application materials, are available online. Questions concerning the program or application process should be directed to Margot Conahan at (312) 280-2522 or e-mail mconahan@ala.org.

Whitney Kemble of UTSC, who is one of the librarians seconded to CTSI for 2011-2012, has produced a lit search on faculty-librarian collaboration, including articles on curriculum integration. We’ve linked that in the sidebar under “InfoLit Library” in this blog. Thank you Whitney!

Although all of the above examples are useful models, every institution has to look at its own capabilities and limitations at the start of a curriculum integration or large-scale embedded project. Some of the models for deeper embedding of information literacy into the curriculum were explored in last week’s ACRL seminar on Embedded Librarians. I’d suggest that you review the webinar summary on the instruction blog to get some ideas on sustainable and scalable methods.

The ACRL Research Coordinating Committee is pleased to sponsor a new forum to give those doing research in academic library contexts an opportunity to share their work with a national audience at the upcoming ALA Annual Conferencein Anaheim, CA, June 21-26, 2012. The ACRL Research Forum will feature three research presentations based on work in progress or completed, followed by discussion.

Who is expected to submit their work and to make presentations?

Practitioners, new researchers, and experienced researchers are all encouraged to present. Both members and non-members of ACRL are welcome to submit. Those selected will be expected to present their papers in person at the forum at ALA Annual and to register for the conference.

What types of papers are suitable for submission to the ACRL Research Forum?

We welcome papers emphasizing the problems, theories, methodologies, or significance of research findings for LIS related to academic libraries and librarianship. Preference will be given to work that furthers the ACRL Plan for Excellence goals (demonstrating the value of academic libraries, student learning, and research and scholarly environment). For more information see http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/about/whatisacrl/strategicplan/Plan_for_Excellence.pdf .

Works in progress are encouraged. Papers that have been previously published or accepted for publication by December 16, 2011, are not eligible for consideration.

How do I submit a paper?

Submit the required author information and a 500-word abstract by mail or email (mradford@rutgers.edu) to Marie L. Radford, Ph.D., School of Communication and Information, 4 Huntington St., New Brunswick, NJ 08901 USA by Friday, December 16, 2011.

The author information must include: name, email, phone and mailing address of contact person plus name(s) and affiliation(s) of additional authors, if applicable. The 500-word abstract must include the title of the paper, a problem statement, status of research (in progress or complete), problem significance, project objectives, methodology, and conclusions (or tentative conclusions for work in progress). If your research is complete, please confirm that your paper has not been published nor accepted for publication by December 16, 2011.

How will papers be selected and when will I know if my paper has been accepted?

At the 2012 ALA Midwinter Meeting, the ACRL Research Coordinating Committee will conduct a blind review to select a maximum of 3 papers. Review criteria include: significance of the study for academic libraries/librarians; quality and creativity of the methodology; and potential to fill gaps or build on previous research in academic libraries/librarianship, particularly with respect to the ACRL Plan for Excellence goals. All submitters will be notified by February 15, 2012.

We write with lots of news–four new releases–from Project Information Literacy (PIL). Today, we released a new research report about how students manage and use technology during the final weeks of the term, two new PIL videos, and a new Smart Talk interview.

We have included a blurb about each new release below along with an link to the source. As always, we hope you will find our new research useful, informative, and thought-provoking.

1) New PIL Research Report — The Technology Study

“Balancing Act: How College Students Manage Technology While in the Library during Crunch Time”
Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg

How do college students manage and use technology while they are in the library during the final weeks of the term? The report from our ongoing study at the University of Washington’s Information School presents findings from 560 undergraduate interviews conducted at 10 US campuses during spring 2011. Findings suggest students adopt a “less is more” approach to manage and control all of the IT devices and information systems available to them while they are in the library during the final weeks of the term. The study is sponsored with a generous gift from both Cable in the Classroom and Cengage Learning.

A short video about our ongoing research study at PIL, including our research questions and what we have discovered about how today’s college students find information and conduct research for coursework and in their everyday lives. An introduction to PIL that may be useful to show at brown bag lunches with colleagues and/or to students in class.

Alison J. Head, Ph.D.
Research Scientist, The Information School, The University of Washington
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Library Innovation Lab, Harvard University